It has been a long-standing dream in the field of ultracold quantum science to create Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) of dipolar molecules. Already soon after the first atomic BECs, it was understood that molecular quantum systems with dipole-dipole interactions will open up novel opportunities for many-body quantum physics. But cooling of molecules to sufficiently low temperatures proved to be exceedingly hard due to the presence of strong collisional losses in molecular gases.
Recently, we have observed the first BECs of dipolar molecules [1-3]. We evaporatively cool sodium-cesium molecules to below 10 nanokelvin, deep in the quantum degenerate regime. The BECs live for several seconds, reaching a stability similar to ultracold atomic gases. This dramatic improvement over previous attempts to cool molecular gases is enabled by collisional shielding via microwave fields, suppressing inelastic losses by four orders of magnitude.
In this talk, I will discuss our experimental approach, share latest insights, and give an outlook on novel opportunities for many-body quantum physics, quantum simulation, and quantum computing.
Sebastian Will is a professor of physics at Columbia University. His research focuses on ultracold atoms and molecules for applications in fundamental science, quantum simulation, quantum computing, and quantum networking. Sebastian is the recipient of the Columbia RISE Award, the NSF Career Award, and the Sloan Fellowship. His research is supported by NSF, AFOSR, ARO, ONR, DOE, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.